


The Letter

by Lipstickcat



Series: Eerie Advent Calendar [3]
Category: Eerie Indiana, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Advent Calendar, Gen, Prompt Fill, eerie advent calendar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:20:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lipstickcat/pseuds/Lipstickcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Day three of the Eerie Advent Calendar. For the prompt "NOW I WANT A HARRY POTTER AU" XD <br/>I think this will not be the last you see of this verse...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Letter

It was a few days before Simon even knew that he'd gotten a letter. No one ever sent him letters. He was too young for bills and the few friends he had, well, one if you consider that ATMs can't write, never went anywhere to send so much as a postcard. So when the letter came through the post Mrs Holmes yanked it out of the letter box and dumped it in the pile of stuff to deal with when she felt like it, along with all the final demands. 

It was actually Harley that found it. He'd ran into the hallway table with his bike and sent the mound of letters scattering across the floor. He wouldn't have bothered to clear the mess up, but in amongst all the official looking typed addresses to his parents, there was a fancy looking handwritten script in his brother's name.

Maybe he was feeling nice that day, or maybe he felt that it was something significant, because he gave it to Simon. 

Simon's hands trembled before he even got the envelope open. It was a nervous energy, the anticipation and wonder. This letter, a letter addressed to him; he who had never opened mail in his life before. It could be anything! And also an anxiousness that this was nothing, just a mistake or a chain letter or an advert for a product he could never afford to buy anyway. But even a chain letter would mean that someone had thought of him to send it. 

He read the short letter three times over. He believed every word. In another life, Simon would have been sceptical, in another life his faith in Santa and the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny would have been already dashed on the rocks during early childhood, everything special and magical drowned in the tsunami of his home life. But this was Eerie, and if there was one magical gift that it gave Simon Holmes, it was the knowledge that all of those things were real, and more. 

Wizards and witches? Absolutely no doubt that they existed. That they needed to go to a special school to hone their craft? That was a no-brainer. 

... That somehow he had been invited to enrol in that school? That came as a strange and pleasant surprise. 

Finally, Simon carefully folded the letter and tucked it back into it's envelope, and that in turn, into his bag. He had to show Marshall right away!

Except, that he didn't. When he arrived at the Teller residence, there was already an _event_ in full swing. Marshall couldn't explain exactly why, but the yeast that his mother had used in her bread dough wasn't really yeast at all, and currently the most delicious smelling, crisp, golden tentacles were writhing out of the oven door and all over the kitchen. 

Simon grabbed a bread knife, while Marshall wielded the battery powered turkey carver. 

When they were through they ate thick cut sandwiches. The bread tasted as good as it had smelled and when Marilyn came home she was pleased with just how much she'd managed to bake. She even took several baguettes (some of the larger cross sections of tentacle) to their neighbours. 

Simon didn't tell his friend about the letter. It didn't seem the right time. 

Time trickled on in the way that time does. Sometimes a slow drip, sitting in his room at night, listening to bangs and shouts, waiting for someone to pass out so that he too could sleep. Sometimes the crazy surge of Eerie happening, that insanity that seemed to revolve around Marshall, around him too now that he was Marshall's friend and the day would end in a bang or a whimper, but either way it came so fast. Sometimes a quiet moment with his brother, making him sandwiches and seeing him to school, watching cartoons with him after picking him up. 

The letter stayed in his bag, slowly becoming more crumpled, the lines of the folds turning a grey shade, the edges of it getting more grubby every time he got it out to reread. Simon couldn't go away. He couldn't afford to go away, and not just in the terms of money. 

One day, while Marshall was busy downstairs looking for books on alchemy, Simon sat at the desk in the Secret Spot and took out the letter once more. He began to pen a sad refusal of his place on his friend's headed notepaper. 

Instead, though, he found himself enquiring about the possibility of long distance learning...


End file.
